Two days before writing this opinion I had never heard of this movie, never knew anything about the directors and had no idea that there was a comic book from which the movie gains its source material. In fact, I had no intention of watching a movie called "From Hell" at all, but fate intervened in one if its mysterious ways and From Hell is what I saw - and very glad I am too.

This vision of Whitechapel(actually filmed in Prague) is one which comes straight out of the Tim Burton school of film-making. Its a Gotham City of a hundred years ago, beautifully filmed in all its repulsiveness - dark, dank, foreboding and oozing filth and decay - you'll feel like a shower when the movie is over...you can almst smell the dirty 'orrible inhabitants. Its a depiction of London at its most foul and its strangely compelling viewing. That said, of course this being a major Hollywood production we have the rather unsmelly, unfoul and out of place looking Johnny Depp as a drug addicted police inspector who has visions of his cases fuelled by 'chasing the green fairy'(drinking absinthe to you and me) and his opium addiction. We also have the most lovely looking 'unfortunate'(whore to you and me) to walk the streets in the form of Heather Graham who plays the ripper's most famous victim Mary Kelly. Both are very English/Irish of course(hah!) because far be it for Hollywood to actually cast some English/Irish actors in a role which needs English/Irish actors to play them...but that said they actually do a very good job. I was fully expecting a great performance from Johnny Depp and wasn't disappointed as usual - even his Bri'ish accent was good but was ready to cringe at Heather Graham's attempt at an Irish one...but she surprised me thankfully, it is actually quite authentic rendition.

Overall then, you have to say that the acting performances here are quite simply top notch. I can't fault any of them and when the Ripper's identity is revealed(yes they reveal him, and much later than the comic does apparently) that actor's performance is truly frightening. Its hard to ever fault Johnny Depp and this is another one of those occasions as he puts in a controlled, calculating performance in the main role as the drug fuelled, inspector Fredderick Abberline. Heather Graham is also great but her character is rather superfluous to the plot other than to bring about a rather contrived romance between these two which never really works and the plot is totally uncomfortable with - as indeed seem to be the two characters. Even so, not her fault and her performance is good, it would be nice to see her given a really decent role one day. Everyone else...is everyone else as is usually the case but for once the supporting cast is not only excellent but well cast and by enlarge totally relevant to the interesting and novel twist this movie puts upon an old and much filmed bit of history.

The entire movie oozes class, the scriptwriters having Vertical Limit and Les Miserables to their name and the directors the rather excellent Menace II Society. The production design from oscar winner Martin Childs(Shakespeare in Love) captures the squalor of Victorian England to perfection, transforming the streets of Prague into the eeriest scenes you have ever witnessed, where danger lurks in every darkened recess and transforms London into a place you would never, ever want to visit. Peter Deming's(Scream 3) cinematography tops this off by making every scene gorgeously spooky and atmospheric. Be warned though, this is a movie about a violent, bloody killer and some of the scenes are more than a little horrific and gory. Many are shown through psychologically wearing quick-cut flashback dream sequences as Abbeline goes on his drug induced bouts of clairvoyance. In these sequences we are battered with nightmare images which flash past but act like a flashbulb going off seering a mental image on the brain as they do so - far more effective than long lingering scenes of blood and gore and far more shocking. Its effectively no more gory than any other movie produced recently but its certainly better handled than most and the impact maximised in this respect. There is also a fair amount of the long-lingering gore scenes as well as much being implied...the Ripper being well documented as cutting out the intestines of one victim and draping them around their shoulders and cutting out the 'livelyhood', as the movie puts it, of others amongst other things. Its very bloody, but most of this is implied rather than seen - but for that matter you will get to see a truly shocking and graphic throat cutting scene which is all the more horrific because you really do not expect anything quite that graphic on mainstream cinema.